I'm an Economist and Former Congressional campaign strategist and Ex-GM of Wu Tang Management. As CEO of AfricaPrebrief – I guide US-based investors in African economies. I write in memory of Jude Wanniski (polyconomics.com)

8/22/2012 @ 12:37PM1,235 views

President Obama Has The Tone Of A Challenger, Calls The WWE

If President Obama’s tone has you feeling like he’s the challenger and not the incumbent you aren’t the only one.

As I watch the Obama campaign execute its messaging and observe the subtle changes in the hardened presentations of the President, my mind can’t help but go to professional wrestling.

It’s only fitting that one day after Brock Lesnar’s defeat of Triple H at SummerSlam that reports emerge of an apparent battle royale underway inside Team Obama. While much of the focus is on personality conflicts and ego management, a salient point comes across: there’s a great deal of tension in the process of managing the sober, battle tested, pragmatic and almost win-at-all costs 2012 personality of President Obama with the optimism and some may now say naievte of the 2008 aura of Candidate Obama.

This dynamic was inevitable and nothing exclusive to politics. Before pointing toward its twin in the WWE I’ll pull from a moment in my own professional background.

When I was in the music industry one of the most interesting things I observed was the tortuous experience a successful debut artist goes through when conceiving and producing their always highly anticipated follow-up album. The pressure is enormous as the artists find themselves in the throes of 1) a social mirror comprised of a loyal fan base and critic community with too much time on their hands and who have imagined all kinds of variations on the first album 2) a marketing machine which wants to ‘mainstream’ or expand the popularity of the artist into new demographic categories and 3) their own conscience and internal creative compass which has grown tired of the echo of their biggest hits and now desires to explore new artistic frontiers.

I lived through something like this while serving as part of Wu-Tang Management in between the classic ‘Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)’ and the creatively evolved but commercially disappointing ‘Wu-Tang Forever’ album (Wu leader RZA is such a musical genius the sound of ‘Forever’ prefigured rap’s dramatic turn away from sampling by almost 4 years).

Balancing and reconciling the confluence of these 3 forces – core audience loyalty, market principles, and personal evolution – is one of the hardest things any artist or leader can do. Although Wu-Tang was mindful of our core audience (the closest thing rap has had to Grateful Dead or KISS like zealots) we did overreach with our internal calculation that the mainstream video outlet MTV and not the biggest rap radio station in America – Hot 97- was the lynchpin of a strategy to sell 4 million units.

President Obama’s newly displayed tough exterior and commitment to a strategy designed to lift Gov. Romney’s negatives more than his own positives is a calculated risk that departs from his trademark attributes, and it may not only cost the President his job but also peaceful sleep at night.

Politico captured an aspect of this when it reported:

“Despite Obama’s all-in commitment to the campaign, there have been signs of strain. And people close to him detect, from time to time, a yearning for the high ground. It is most often reflected during his drafting of speeches — a therapeutic, clarifying exercise for a politician with a writer’s impulse to reconciling contradiction through narrative.

To give Obama a break from the relentless negativity of the campaign, friend and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett quietly set up a salon/dinner for Obama over the summer — which lasted more than two hours, a huge block of presidential time.

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